The U.K’s controversial Online Safety Bill is now set to become law, giving the world’s biggest messaging firms a dilemma: whether or not to carry out threats to leave the U.K.
The Online Safety Bill includes measures that could effectively force messaging apps to break end-to-end encryption, with provisions that force them to scan messages for child abuse images. The tech companies have long argued that creating such a back door would make their system vulnerable to hackers and rogue states. Several stated they would rather leave the U.K. than meet the government’s demands.
A fortnight ago, as the bill was nearing the end of its passage through Parliament, the government appeared to offer an olive branch to the technology firms, stating in the House of Lords that it would only enforce this particular requirement when it became “technically feasible and where technology has been accredited as meeting minimum standards of accuracy.”
However, today the U.K.’s Home Secretary has reignited the issue, urging Meta to drop plans to encrypt messages sent via Facebook Messenger.
“Meta has failed to provide assurances that they will keep their platforms safe from sickening abusers,” Suella Braverman stated. “They must develop appropriate safeguards to sit alongside their plans for end-to-end encryption.”
What Now For The Messaging Firms?
The U.K. government’s persistence puts the ball back in the court of the technology firms—and they show no signs of backing down, either.
Responding to the Home Secretary’s fresh attack on Meta this morning, the President of Signal said her company would carry out its threat to leave the U.K. if they were forced to implement the measures outlined in the Online Safety Bill.
“Signal will never undermine our privacy promises & the encryption they rely on,” Whittaker tweeted. “Our position remains firm: we will continue to do whatever we can to ensure people in the U.K. can use Signal. But if the choice came down to being forced to build a backdoor, or leaving, we we’d [sic]
leave.”
In a statement sent to the BBC, Meta also remained defiant. “We don’t think people want us reading their private messages”, the company said.
“The overwhelming majority of Brits already rely on apps that use encryption to keep them safe from hackers, fraudsters and criminals.”
Government Threats
The question now is how far the U.K. government is prepared to push the matter, not least with a General Election looming on the horizon?
Speaking in an interview with the BBC this morning, the Home Secretary warned the tech firms that the government now has “wide-ranging powers contained in this new legislation that enables us via Ofcom, the regulator, to direct companies to take necessary steps in particular circumstances.”
However, she stopped short of a promise to implement the new powers, stating “I’d far rather work constructively with these social media companies. They play a valuable part in our lives.”
The government will now have to decide whether the electorate will look more favorably upon a government that is prepared to stand up to Big Tech in the name of protecting children, or one that doesn’t force the apps millions of people use every day to withdraw from the country.
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